


Phases

by adventurepants



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-17
Updated: 2010-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-15 22:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adventurepants/pseuds/adventurepants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Dr. Magnus works all kinds of magic, he’s learned.”  Pre-series: Henry finds a home and a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phases

Henry has been living at Helen Magnus’s home, her sanctuary, for a week when it happens. He loses control, just for a second, but he’s young, and that’s all it takes.

It’s early afternoon, just after lunch, and Dr. Magnus is giving him a math lesson. She’ll teach him at home for a while, she says, and then when he’s ready, he’ll go to a regular school with lots of other children. He’s stumped by one of the problems she’s given him, and when his pencil breaks, the spark of frustration he feels grows out of proportion instantly, and he can feel himself changing. It was only a difficult problem and a snapped pencil tip, but there he is, a ten-year-old werewolf snarling in the middle of the library.

Dr. Magnus stays perfectly calm. She doesn’t back away, and she doesn’t cower in fear. Henry struggles to stop the growls from rumbling past his bared teeth, but it’s so hard to focus on anything beyond his aggression. He shakes with the effort, as Dr. Magnus speaks to him.

“It’s all right, Henry. You’re all right. We’ll just wait a bit, and you’ll calm down, and we’ll get back to our lesson.”

Henry hears what she’s saying, and almost, _almost_ understands it, but all he can think about is a wordless, all-consuming desire to rip something to shreds. Not Dr. Magnus, never her, but if she gets too close he’s not sure he can stop himself. It takes all the willpower he has to move backwards, out of the pile of his shredded clothing. He can smell her—he can smell everything—and it’s so strange, how he does and doesn’t want to hurt her all at the same time.

“That’s right,” Dr. Magnus says, still calm and completely patient. “That’s good, Henry.”

He’s stopped growling, he realizes, which must be what she’s praising him for. He takes a few more steps back, and tries to think about breathing in and out, slowly, the way she told him he should.

“There,” she says, as Henry begins to shrink, transforming back into a boy once more.

He’s dazed for a few seconds, shaking his head to dispel the fog from his mind, then he scrambles forward, snatching up scraps of his clothing to cover himself. He retreats to a corner of the room and sinks to the floor, frightened and embarrassed, as Dr. Magnus comes toward him.

“There we go. Back to normal. That was very good, Henry, you did very well just now.”

“Don’t!” he says, nearly frantic. “Don’t come any closer, please.”

Dr. Magnus stands still. “You’re all right,” she tells him again. “You didn’t hurt anyone, you didn’t hurt me.”

“I might. I might turn into a wolf again and not be able to make myself stop. Sometimes I can’t make myself stop. I could hurt you.”

“Nonsense,” she says immediately, but not unkindly. “Now, you just wait here while I get you a new set of clothes, and we’ll get back to those problems that were bothering you.” She bends over him and places her hand under his chin, tilting it upwards. “Everything is just fine, Henry. I promise.”

He doesn’t wait for her when she leaves the room. Instead, he clutches his ripped clothing against his body and sprints the short distance to his new bedroom, slamming the door shut and locking it behind him.

He yanks a drawer open and pulls out new pants and underwear and a shirt, and throws them on angrily. He forgot to make his bed that morning, and he flops down on the mess of sheets and blankets, drawing his knees up under his chin and hugging himself tightly.

He could have hurt her. He could have _killed_ her. He’s not safe, and he’s ruined everything.

It’s only a couple of minutes later when Dr. Magnus knocks on his door. “Henry? Are you in there?”

“I’m not coming out!” he yells in the direction of the door.

“Maybe you’ll let me in, then?” she asks, not a trace of irritation in her voice, though he can’t imagine how.

“I can’t. I might hurt you.”

“I don’t believe that. I think you just proved that you wouldn’t, in the library.” She waits, and when he doesn’t answer, she speaks again. “It’s all right if you want to be alone. You can come out of your room whenever you’re ready.”

Henry hears her footsteps retreating, and suddenly he can’t stand the thought that he might have hurt her feelings. He leaps off the bed and over to the door, turning the lock and poking his head out into the hallway. “Dr. Magnus!”

She stops and turns around, smiling at him. “Yes, Henry?”

“You can come in.”

He ducks back in the room and throws his comforter over his bed, trying to make it look neater in the few seconds he has. He sits down on the edge as Dr. Magnus enters the room and sits down next to him. He looks up at her, making himself stay still instead of scooting away.

“I know it might not seem like it right now,” she begins, “but what happened in the library just now was actually a good thing. We have to learn about your abnormality so we can learn how to manage it.”

“I can’t control it. I can’t even think like a person when it happens. I can’t make it stop happening.” He clenches his fists and looks down at his lap, willing himself not to cry.

“You will control it. I know you will. Soon enough, you’ll only become a wolf when you want to.”

“I won’t ever want to,” he says, his voice a bit louder than he intended.

“Then you won’t,” she says. “Simple as that. Henry, I know this is difficult, and I know you feel very alone in this. But you’re not alone. There are plenty of other people who are different, like you.”

Henry nods. “Like that big, furry guy.”

Dr. Magnus grins. “Like him. And like me.”

Henry blinks, confused. “You? What… what’s different about you?”

“Oh, it’s nothing so interesting as becoming a wolf,” she says. “I just don’t grow any older, physically. No matter how many years go by, I stay the same.”

“Whoa!” Henry is instantly impressed. A thousand questions spring to mind, but all that comes out is, “So how old are you?”

She raises her hands, pretends to count on her fingers. “Let’s see. It’s 1985? I’m one hundred and thirty four.”

Henry’s jaw drops open before he can stop it. “Wow!”

Helen laughs. “We’ll keep that to ourselves, of course. A lady never reveals her age.”

“I won’t tell anybody, Dr. Magnus. I swear,” he tells her, his young face suddenly serious. She’s different, like him, and he’ll keep her secret.

“So there you have it,” she says. “You’re not alone anymore, Henry. And I’m going to help you.” She eyes the floor by the bed. There’s a big box of Legos there that she’d brought him a few days before. “Now. What shall we build?”

“You mean you’re not going to make me finish school?”

“I think we’ve learned enough for one day, don’t you?” She leans over and picks up a yellow block from the box. “A castle, do you think? Or maybe a spaceship.”

***

Dr. Magnus’s stomach starts growing not long after Henry comes to live at the Sanctuary. He knows what it means, he thinks. It means that soon, she won’t have as much time for him, to teach him and take care of him like she’s been doing the past few weeks. It’s all right, he decides. She’s done so much for him already, given him a place to live, his own bedroom, clothes and books and even toys- and he knows she’ll keep him safe. From himself, and anything else that might come along.

There’s no father, which puzzles Henry, but he doesn’t ask. Helen Magnus works all kinds of magic, he’s learned.

***

Henry wakes up late one night, long past his bedtime, and finds that no matter how still and quiet he tries to be, he just can’t fall asleep again. He gets up eventually, leaving his room to wander down hallways, comforted by how familiar they’ve become- this truly is his home now. He sees light coming from one of the living rooms, and wonders if someone left a lamp on by mistake. When he enters the room, he finds Dr. Magnus sitting on the couch, one hand on her stomach, the other holding what looks like a picture of something.

She looks up. “Henry. You should be in bed,” she says, but her tone is too gentle to really be scolding him, and she’s smiling.

Henry shrugs. “I can’t sleep,” he answers, offering her a hesitant grin. “I’m not tired yet.”

She pats the spot next to her, and he joins her gratefully. She puts her arm around his shoulders, something he’d shied away from at first, before she’d convinced him that he wasn’t dangerous, that he wouldn’t hurt her any more than she would ever hurt him. “What’s that?” Henry asks, nodding at the fuzzy black and grey picture in her hand.

“This is an ultrasound photograph,” she says. “It’s a picture of the baby.”

There’s something in her voice that he can’t quite place, but it’s forgotten momentarily as he leans forward, squinting at the picture, a surprised giggle escaping his throat.

“Henry? What is it?” Dr. Magnus asks, half-amused, half-bewildered.

He’s almost embarrassed, but answers truthfully. “It looks like… I thought it was an abnormal!” he says, using the word she’s taught him to describe both himself and the fantastic creatures she brings home.

Dr. Magnus laughs with him now, and he’s immeasurably thankful, once again, that she found him. “No,” she says. “That’s what babies look like at this stage. She’s an entirely normal baby girl.”

“A girl?” Henry asks. He tries not to sound disappointed, but as usual, Dr. Magnus is every bit as smart as she looks.

“You were hoping for a boy, I take it?”

His cheeks flush and he looks at her with wide eyes, but she smiles again, and everything is all right.

“Oh, it won’t be so bad. You might even like her.”

Henry nods. “I’ll like her. I promise.”

“Well, I’m very glad to hear that,” she says, placing the photo down on the coffee table. “She’ll look up to you, you know.”

He considers this for a moment, tilting his head. “Like an older brother?”

“Exactly like that,” she says, patting his hand. “That’s exactly what you’ll be.”

They’re quiet for a moment, thinking, before Dr. Magnus stands, saying she’ll make them some tea, and then they can both try going to sleep again.

***

Dr. Magnus has her baby in a hospital, just like any regular mother, which is an idea that surprises Henry at first. “I can’t very well deliver my own baby, now can I?” she tells him with a smile and a wink. “Besides, I’m not an obstetrician.”

She’s very calm about the whole ordeal, and it’s nothing like what he saw on TV a few months before. She meets him at the entrance of the house as he’s returning home from school and tells him that she’s been having contractions since mid-morning, and would he like to stay at home or go to the hospital with her, now that their intervals have become quite short.

He waits in a chair outside the delivery room, expecting to hear screaming and other sounds of distress, but there’s not much to listen to at all, only a man’s voice telling Dr. Magnus to breathe and push, and then finally, a baby’s cry.

Eventually, a nurse emerges from inside to fetch him- and if anyone thinks it’s strange that a small boy is waiting outside a hospital delivery room by himself, they haven’t said so, and he’s sure Dr. Magnus has had something to do with that.

“Would you like to meet your little sister?” the nurse says, and Henry doesn’t correct her. It’s true enough. He nods and rises and follows her in, and she pats his shoulder and tells him, “Go on. It’s okay.”

Dr. Magnus is propped up by pillows, holding a bundle in her arms. She looks tired, but happy- and there’s something else he doesn’t have a name for, something in her eyes as they look up and land on him standing nervously a few feet away.

Henry’s not sure he’s ever seen someone look so pleased. “Come and meet Ashley,” she tells him, and he moves to stand beside the bed, peering over at the tiny, pink human who’s finally made her entrance.

“She’s very small, isn’t she?” Dr. Magnus says. “For as big as I got.”

Henry only stares, finding that he’s been struck dumb. She is, indeed, very small, and he reaches out slowly to run one finger over her soft cheek.

“Would you like to hold her?”

Henry almost says no, but then he’s agreeing almost without realizing it. She places the baby in his arms, showing him how to support the head, and he grins as Ashley looks up at him, blinking her blue eyes.

It doesn’t feel like he’s being replaced, he finds. It feels like he’s part of something that’s just gotten bigger.

***

Ashley cries—a lot—and it’s mostly at night when Henry is trying to sleep. He doesn’t mind so much, not since the Big Guy offered him a good pair of earplugs, but he can tell that it’s making Dr. Magnus tired. She’s still lovely, always perfectly put together without a single hair out of place, but sometimes there are dark circles under her eyes, and it would worry him if she didn’t seem so content.

Remarkably (or perhaps not remarkably at all, if he really thinks about it,) she still makes time for him every day. She’ll help him with his homework, or play a board game with him, and she still coaches him on what she calls his lycanthropy at least once a week. He starts to feel a little stupid for thinking she’d forget about him, but out of all the reasons there are in life to feel stupid, it’s not such a bad one.

***

Henry is twelve, the one time he really gets in trouble at school- trouble beyond talking out of turn or forgetting a homework assignment.

He likes school, mostly. He gets good grades and has friends and doesn’t mind math so much anymore, but every school has bullies. Henry’s school has Kyle, in particular; a stocky, imposing boy in Henry’s grade who gives him a hard time for being weird, a nerd, a geek, and for living in “that creepy mansion with some lady who’s not even his mom.”

Henry can’t fight—he knows he can’t, it’s too dangerous and he’d get too angry, and he won’t make that mess for the doc to clean up. So he decides, instead, to break into the school’s computer system and change all of Kyle’s grades to F’s. This would have been supremely satisfying, had he not been caught just prior to completing his task.

He means to make it in and out of the office before anyone notices he’s not at lunch with the rest of the seventh grade, but he doesn’t count on a secretary having forgotten her glasses at her desk. So he finds himself in an uncomfortable chair in the principal’s office, stomach growling due to his missed lunch, waiting for the doc to show up to discuss “this urgent disciplinary matter.”

Mrs. Andrews, the principal, hasn’t said a word to Henry the whole time he’s been waiting, leaving his insides to turn over in silence. “Mrs. Foss,” she finally says as the doc arrives. “I’m so sorry to call you in on such short notice, but I’m afraid this is a situation that must be dealt with immediately.”

“Dr. Magnus,” she corrects, glancing down at Henry with a disappointment in her eyes that bothers him far more than any school’s punishment could. “I’m Henry’s guardian.”

“Ah,” Mrs. Andrews says, and her tone makes Henry look up at her curiously. She says it like she’s just had a question answered. Like it means something.

Dr. Magnus must hear it too, because as he looks back at her, her eyes soften and she places her hand on his shoulder for a moment before she sits down next to him.

Mrs. Andrews begins. “Now, as my secretary explained to you on the phone, Henry was caught in the act of tampering with another student’s grades, which is a behavior that we simply cannot tolerate.”

“Yes, she said as much,” Dr. Magnus says, turning her attention to Henry. “Is that true? Did you try to change that other boy’s grades?”

“Yes,” he says, voice quiet, and stares down at his lap. He can’t look at her.

“He admits it freely, and while I appreciate his honesty in this instance, it in no way makes up for the deceitfulness he displayed in the first place.”

“Of course, I understand,” Dr. Magnus says, and Henry’s _dying_ to know what she’s thinking.

Mrs. Andrews leans forward a bit and lowers her voice, as if Henry won’t hear her if he’s not being directly addressed. “Dr. Magnus, I understand that sometimes it’s hard for children in the foster care system to adapt to their situations, and that it can cause them to lash out, but I-”

“Mrs. Andrews!” Magnus cuts her off harshly. “I’m sure that Henry had a reason for taking the actions he did, but I am every bit as certain that his _situation_ , as you put it, had nothing to do with it.” She is instantly intimidating, and Mrs. Andrews, startled, is momentarily unable to respond.

Dr. Magnus turns back to Henry. “Would you like to tell me why you felt compelled to tamper with your classmate’s grades?”

Henry shifts uncomfortably. “Because he’s a jerk, Doc. He calls me names and he shoves me around all the time, and he won’t leave me alone no matter how much I try to ignore him. And I knew I couldn’t fight him, so I did this.”

“And are you the only person he makes a habit of targeting?”

“No,” Henry shakes his head. “He’s a bully. He’s mean to lots of kids. Every day. James has a bruise on his elbow right now from being shoved up against the lockers.”

“I see. Has he ever been reprimanded for his actions?”

He shakes his head again. “Never.”

Dr. Magnus once again faces Principal Andrews, who, stunned, had ceded control of the conversation. “And you allow this boy to do as he pleases, verbally and physically threatening the other children on a daily basis?”

Mrs. Andrews scrambles to defend herself. “Dr. Magnus, I assure you that our students’ happiness and safety are our number one concern, and we would never allow a bully to continually terrorize the other children.”

“It appears that’s not quite the case, Mrs. Andrews. What Henry did was wrong and he should be punished for it, but it’s clear to me that he was only defending himself in the best way he knew how. I don’t believe in running away at the first sign of a problem, so Henry will be returning to school tomorrow, or after a period of suspension if you deem it necessary, but if this situation is allowed to continue, I can promise you I _will_ take further action.” She rises from her chair, uninterested in waiting for the principal’s response. “Come along, Henry, I think we’re done here.”

He follows her through the school and out to the parking lot, and finally, in the car, finds his voice. “You’re not mad at me?”

She reaches over and pats his knee before starting the car. “No, darling, I’m not mad. Not at you.” She casts a disapproving glare at the front of the school as she backs out of her parking space. “Let’s go home.”

***

Ashley is five, bright eyed and intelligent and as brave as any child twice her age, when Helen explains her longevity to her daughter.

Ashley goes looking for Henry afterwards, and finds him in his bedroom, attempting to build a computer out of the parts of several others. “My mom told me something,” she says, as she hovers over a small pile of wires on his desk.

“Don’t touch ‘em, Ash,” he warns her as he glances up briefly.

“I won’t,” she says, stubborn spark in her voice, and he knows she’s itching to reach out and grab something.

Henry sets down what he’s working on and faces Ashley, because even at five years old she demands full attention. “Well? What did she tell you?”

“She said… she said that she doesn’t get older. And I’m gonna keep getting bigger but she’s going to stay the same.” She’s as serious as he’s ever seen her before, like she’s just learned the biggest, most earth-shattering secret in the whole world. “She said you know about it, and I could talk to you if I want to.”

“Yeah,” Henry tells her, nodding. “I know about it.”

Ashley takes this as an invitation to climb onto Henry’s lap. “Am I going to be older than my mom someday?”

Henry is fifteen and too old for cuddling, but Ashley is given many allowances he wouldn’t make for anyone else. “Someday,” he answers. It hadn’t taken him long, at ten, to realize he’d be older than the doc one day. He was twelve when it finally hit him that eventually, he and Ashley would grow old and die and leave her behind, the same way so many others in her life had already done. He wanted to hope that somehow, Ashley would never reach this same conclusion. But he knew better.

“That’s weird, Henry,” she decides. “Moms are supposed to be older.”

“It won’t happen for a long time, though,” he says, hoping that might make her feel better, but she’s smart like her mother- she won’t ignore something simply because it’s a long way off.

She picks up the spacebar from a dismantled keyboard, and he lets her. “Will she still be my mom? When I’m older than her?”

“Of course, Ash.” He reaches around her to pick up a piece of computer innards, trying to remember what he meant to do with it before he was interrupted. “She’ll always be your mom.”

Ashley fiddles with the piece of plastic in her hand, like she can’t figure out what to say.

“It’s okay, Ashley. Look. There’s a lot of weird stuff around here, right? Like me.”

Ashley nods slowly. She’d never seen him become a wolf, and he intended for her never to see, but she knew that he could. “Mom says you’re special.”

Henry rolls his eyes. “Right. Well, she’s special, too. There’s nothing wrong with not getting older, it’s just… a thing.”

She puts the spacebar down. “Am I special?”

“Well, you’re touching my computer stuff and I haven’t killed you, so I guess that means you’re pretty special.”

Giggling, she hops off his lap. “Your computer stuff is boring, Henry. I’m gonna go play.”

Henry watches her skip out of the room before turning back to his project. He thinks he might be sort of okay at being a big brother.

***

Henry dreams about Ashley, the night after her funeral. It’s hazy and fragmented, tinted yellow with warm light coming from a source he can’t identify. He starts to lose the details as he wakes, but he can remember that she was smiling, that she looked peaceful- she was _Ashley_ again, and she had come to tell him goodbye.

As he sits up in bed, he can almost swear that it was real. He’s never given much thought to ghosts, but it would be hard, having led the life he had, to come right out and say you didn’t believe in something. His chest feels heavy with grief, and he wonders if he’ll see her again. If she knows, wherever she is, that he loved her and he misses her and that the Sanctuary feels strange and empty without her.

He gets out of bed, because he doesn’t feel much like sleeping anymore. He’s wearing a t-shirt and boxers, and he takes a moment to throw on a pair of jeans before he leaves his bedroom, in case anyone else is awake.

Henry finds the doc in the library, sitting on the couch and holding a picture in her hand, and he’s instantly taken back to that night from his childhood, before Ashley was born, when he promised he’d like her even if she was a girl. He feels frozen in the doorway for a moment, because seeing Helen Magnus so stricken with sadness is so unfamiliar and awful that he doesn’t know how to act around her right now.

She looks up, not startled by his presence, though she wipes at her eyes quickly. “Henry.”

“Hey,” he says, and commands his legs to move. They carry him to the couch, and he sits down next to Helen, who takes the hand that he offers her and holds on tightly. He looks at the picture she still holds in her other hand. It’s Ashley, around thirteen or fourteen, laughing at the camera and looking carefree and happy and like she has her whole life ahead of her. She’s on a boat, he can see the railing and the ocean behind her, but he can’t remember when it was taken.

Henry wants to tell Helen about his dream; that Ashley’s okay, somewhere, but he can’t find the words. It’s Helen, then, who speaks first.

“I knew this day would come. I knew I’d lose her someday. It’s what scared me most about being a mother… that barring illness or accident, I’d outlive my child.” She pauses, and wipes another tear from her face. “No parent should ever have to outlive her child. But I thought…” she lets out a quiet, incongruous laugh. “I thought she’d be old. I thought she would have lived a full, long life, and that she’d be ready. That I’d be ready to let her go. I suppose I should have known better.”

“No, Magnus, you… nobody could have seen this coming.” He closes his eyes for a moment, willing his own tears away.

“I could have protected her. I could have forbidden her from working with me, I could have told her she had to get a regular job, something boring and safe. I could have done that for both of you.”

The corners of Henry’s mouth turn up in spite of the ache inside of him. “Aw, come on. Like we could have done anything else. This is who we are, Doc! You might be the boss, but. Ash and I would have been un-fire-able.”

There’s a sad smile on her lips, and she’s still holding his hand. “Wouldn’t have taken no for an answer, hmm?”

“Nope.” He takes a breath. “Listen, she wouldn’t have blamed you for this. Ashley loved you, and you were a great mom to her. We both…” his voice catches and he has to stop for a few seconds. “You were great to both of us. We couldn’t have asked for better.”

“I don’t know how to let her go, Henry,” she says, and finally lets out a sob, hiding her face in her hands.

He puts his arms around her, then, and it’s unfamiliar, comforting her like this. She’d always been the one doing the comforting, so strong and controlled and such a solid presence in his life. “I know. I don’t either.” She seems smaller, somehow, as he holds her. “But you’re not alone, okay? You told me that, remember? That I never had to feel alone. And you don’t, either. I’m gonna be here, and you won’t be alone.”

She doesn’t answer right away, just stays with her head against his shoulder, struggling to stop crying. Eventually, she’s able to lift her head, to look him in the eye. “Thank you, Henry. You don’t know what that means to me.”

He has some idea, is his mumbled reply, and he stands, saying he’ll make them some tea. When he brings it back, they drink it together, waiting out the rest of the night with photo albums on their laps, remembering in quiet voices the fierce little girl they’d watched grow into a brave young woman.

He’ll make sure she’s okay, he promises himself. He’ll do for her what she’s always done for him.


End file.
